Sunday, 11 October 2015

Double the Romance: A Walk in the Clouds & Cinderella

A Walk in the Clouds

What's a romance movie doing here?

Keanu Reaves is soldier returned from war to what looks like a not so good marriage. While trying to reintegrate into society he meets a random girl (over and over again) and due to his sense of duty ends up pretending to be her husband when she returns home, just to save her from getting yelled at by her dad. Yes. He tries to help her with lies. Good plan! Obviously things get complicated when the rest of the household quite likes him and he starts falling in love with the girl he tells lies for.

Fly Neo... Fly!

I have to admit, the acting, setting and story here are all decent enough. I especially liked the dad and grand dad of the "fated" girl. While I'm not sure -I- would have done the same thing Keanu's character did I'm pretty sure the only thing I don't like about it is that it's a romance flick. No guesses on who chose this movie (thanks wifey). :P Ultimately I give it two and a half clouds out of five, but isn't something I'd watch again.

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Cinderella

Disney proves it has a lot of money.

A live action remake of the cartoon classic, Disney really outdid themselves in recreating Cinderella. From the sets, to the CGI, to the costumes, everything is of fantastic production value. Obviously there's great music too but if you are looking for the sung songs they are scarcely used during the actual film and were plonked at the end credits instead, much like in the footsteps of Maleficent.

Count the number of different dresses.

While all the actors play their parts well, for me Cate Blanchett really stands out as the cruel step mom. Unlike Maleficent there are no real "dark" bits here that parents might shield their kids from though and if you remember the original film then you basically have the whole story repeated here for you. This is both a plus and a minus in that there's nothing new, but you know what to expect. All up I give this movie four glass slippers out of five, and can recommend it to pretty much anyone (unless you absolutely hate all things Disney - you monster! :P). Would I watch it again? Hrm... I'd have to say no. Maleficent is more my thing.

I think I've managed to not see them... I know they exist and have been in the house, and I think my daughters that are now 14 and 18 have seen them, but I believe I was always at work when they did. They only watched them the one time themselves, and I've not really heard anything good about them.

Actually no, I think I recall the basic premise of the 2nd one was that she felt useless as a princess and like she needed to be doing something, but the servants wouldn't let her and she had to overcome the prejudices against a princess simply being a trophy wife and also actually getting to know the prince since it was kind of "meet on day 1, get found on day 2, get married on day 3" kind of thing.

Or that might be me remembering some story from my daighter's night-time disny princess storybook too.. I dunno. It all runs together.